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I took part in Ludum Dare #26 with a minimal DOS game written in x86 assembly. Though I couldn’t finish the game within 48 hours, I got some really nice feedback, also I saw some more potential in the game, which eventually inspired me to finish it after the compo.

The game is now (somewhat) playable. It has a HUD which shows your health, how many treasures you collected, and how many monsters you killed. Also, the field is randomly generated, and if you leave the screen, you get a new field (as if you left the previous one). Also, whenever you kill a monster (or you get killed by one), a random name is selected from a list of races – some of these races are shout-outs to various indie games I love – I suggest all the referenced games for everyone to check out. 😉

Some added awesomeness to this game (which I’m really proud of) is that it’s OS-independent: though it runs natively under DOS, it doesn’t actually require DOS to run. To prove this, you can actually write the binary image into the boot sector of a floppy (and possibly other bootable storage media) and then you can directly boot your PC with it. The binary is exactly 3 sectors long, and it contains a boot code which loads the rest of the game if it’s booted by BIOS. Since the game only depends on ROM-BIOS calls those are available in all IBM-compatible PCs since the 80s, the game will run without a traditional operating system – in other words, technically the game will function as your operating system. 😉 (Though I can’t prove it, theoretically this code should run even on the earliest IBM PC model, as well as on today’s PCs. Though I’m not entirely sure that all BIOS functions I used were available since the very beginning.)

Originally I intended to include a readme.txt file for the program, but I found the source code itself is quite self-documenting. So just read the source code and you will find all information you need. (I advocate the “code is design” philosophy anyway. :P)

We must admit, this game is rather a computer science experiment than an actual game. It’s not very fun, I must admit. 😀

Basically, I had two motives to make this game. One is nostalgia. I remember having fun times reading one of Peter Norton‘s books on assembly programming when I was 13 or 14 (that was like 10 years ago) while others were learning how to get girlfriends. Then during high school’s carefree times I started to work on a hobby operating system I called ShitOS, which would have been entirely implemented in assembly – I was very far from finishing it when I gave it up ’cause I had to realize I don’t have enough free time to work on it. The other reason I made this game is that I think assembly is totally awesome! First, it even looks awesome, I’d totally decorate my walls with it! Second, it does great to the programmer’s soul. To master assembly, you need to understand how the computer works on a deep level, which is a de facto requirement for all good programmers.

Anyway, possible that I’ll develop this game further whenever I get this assembly-fever again. 😉

So I have an idea for a game development jam (or compo). Quite simple: the declared themes would be tropes to follow. One thing is sure: any games you ever made do have tropes – it couldn’t be anyway. Any time you designed a video game, you did think with tropes – whether you did it consciously or not. What if you had to use tropes very consciously? In every round of the game jam, you were given a specific trope to focus on. This trope could be a video game trope (of course), an illustration (art) trope or a plot/narrative trope or basically, any kind of trope which can be somehow applied to a video game.

If you’re not familiar with the terminology, visit TVtropes.org to get educated!

What is your opinion of this?

Probably it would be a problem that since I have no reputation as an indie game developer, no one would join my jam. So I could use a little help there… Since myself don’t have much (enough) free time, I would most probably have a hell simple submission system like the Experimental Gameplay Project has. But it could be fun anyway. 😉

^ This is my game‘s status on FGL. I’ve set it for bidding 2 days ago, but it hasn’t been approved yet by the FGL Staff. Below, there is some more info:

“Your game is awaiting approval and analysis by our team before it will be visible to potential sponsors. This usually takes 3 to 5 days.“

Most probably it depends on the actual workload, but according to my own experience so far, FGL used to be pretty much quick. They used to answer questions within a day, and once I ordered a pre-review, it was done within an hour – despite they say a pre-review takes about a week. They are really great guys!

Though as far as I know, they don’t work on weekends – my previous experience backs it up: they never answered to me during weekends. Since they didn’t approve my game on Friday, they surely won’t do it until Monday. I don’t want to be impatient, but still, this is the very first game I ever sell. Of course, I’m excited – what happens? What will sponsors think about my game? What bids will I receive? So I can’t wait my game being approved. I should be patient…

I’ve posted a very significant update for MegaFillers Flash on FGL. I thought to relay it here.

The game has been updated! Notes on the new version:

– Added new vines to panels (thanks to Chris).
– Music fades after the round ends.
– Added new shaped table: “V”.
– Changed _rrh’s name to “R Hill” in the Credits, according to his request, and added his blog as the URL to open.
– Added sound effect to the table size selector grid in the “New Game” menu (thanks to Merlandese).
– FGL: Set game to 100% complete and put it on bid.

At this point, the MegaFillers Flash project announces a feature freeze. The game is considered complete, no new features or major changes may be implemented from this point.
However:
– major bugs may still be fixed;
– new shaped tables may still be added;
– changes asked by the future sponsor may still be performed.

My entry for the October Challenge is a little puzzle game, MegaFillers Flash. It just aims to be a great implementation of a filler game, which is an existing game concept. In this game, you choose colors to expand your territory. You can’t choose your or your opponent’s actual color, but you must choose a color in each round.

An existing dev log for the game can be found here, but I’m going to post further updates on this blog.

During weekdays, only have limited time to work on the game, and I doubt that I’ll manage to finish it until Friday. Regardless, I’ve uploaded some minor updates during the last days. Just check it out! Now the motivation vs. energy system works, you can get into submenus, and you can actually finish a work shift and go home. But you still can’t go on to the next day, instead, you keep looping in the last phase of your first day.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to implement the proper looping mechanics tomorrow and I can finally start to write the game content – and then only polishment would have left. Well, it’s tight, I don’t think I’ll be able to finish it, but I keep working on the game and share updates of it.

I must admit, my idea was way too ambitious for 48 hours – this is something I learned. If it would be a major Ludum Dare (not Mini), I would have already booked the failure. But this is really just for fun… (though major Ludum Dares are also for fun, so…). I’m glad that the submission form will be open for a week, because I still have a chance to submit the finished game.

The finished game would be divided to days and months. Every day would consist of time you spend at home and time you spend at your workplace. You can do different actions at both places. You get your salary at the beginning of each month, and then you can spend it for bills and repay some of the loan. Actions would cost time, and the time you’ve left for the actual day is affected by your demotivation, depression and hunger levels. If these levels are high, you’ll have less time, but if you manage to take them low, you win some additional time.

I’ve seen another Ludum Darer’s entry for this Mini Ludum Dare, “A bad day on the toilet” by Thurig, which is basically a defecation simulator. Although it’s a little weird, I think it perfectly fits the not-game theme, and I wish good luck to the creator! (Ever since I’m a Drawn Together fan, there is little crudeness that can surprise me.)

Since I’m in a story-telling mood, I tell what this entry has reminded me. In my country, there was a video series, “Rossz PC játékok” (“Bad PC games“) which criticized commercially released games which were really bad. (Pretty much like the Angry Video Game Nerd.) At the end of the episode which introduced the game, “Scooter Pro“, the video’s creator, freddyD, has told a few thoughts about how pointless he finds that there is a simulator for such pointless sports like riding a scooter. Then he listed some ideas for similarly pointless games, and one memorable example was the “Hardcore Nose Picking” simulator. 😀

I was actually playing with the thought of creating an actual game based on the idea, in which you could sell the snot you mined to the creators of “Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing“, which they would use to make the wheels of those trucks so sticky. 😀 (If you don’t get it, in that game, the trucks can park perfectly on vertical surfaces.) I could have used this idea for this Mini Ludum Dare, damn!

Nah, get back to work! I made some progress with my entry, but I seriously doubt I can make anything playable for the end of the day. Especially because I need to get to sleep early, for tomorrow I’ll be in morning shift (yuck!).

Well, yeah, this is what I’ve done during the first day – the three meters. Actually, I set up some classes to use and wrote some internal data structures, so it’s still a little more than the meters. After all, I worked only a few hours on this game today, which is far less than my intention. I should seriously do much better the next day. I’m a very slow developer, and I don’t have enough experience yet.

You are a ~23 years old guy who works at an international company as a sysadmin, earning ~130 000 HUF a month. The goal is simple: save ~150 000 HUF for a usable computer which the guy could use for software development and playing games. But there is a twist!

The guy can’t start saving for the new computer until he repaid his student’s loan (~300 000 HUF).

He must pay the bills and give money to his mother, father and sister for all of them are unemployed; and of course, he has to pay some services for himself.

By the time, several events make the guy’s salary to decrease, but it will never increase. If you find a way to play the game really well, your salary will lessen accordingly.

Practically, you should never be able to win – or if you do win, then many years have passed and your achievement will become flat. Just like in real life. 😉 Good luck! :p

I’m trying to approach this topic in a satirical-sarcastic way, and I really hope I’ll succeed in this. Some previous experiences showed that even when I intend to be sarcastic, I still end up being too bitter. But my trust is in the medium, then – hence “not-game“: it’s not a requirement to be games & joys.

Gameplay

You go to work all days and do several tasks. These tasks might increase or decrease your demotivation, depression and hunger. Of course you should keep these levels low. The lower your demotivation is, the more tasks you can do. At the beginning of each month, you get your salary. I’m thinking that a time flow should be increased so that you take one week or month at once, but I’m not sure if I’ll do that.

Art style

N/A. Nah, seriously, I can’t do art, so expect some really primitive figures and a lot of text. Most likely, my game will be Deliberately Monochrome.

Tools

I use FlashDevelop to write ActionScript code. Most likely, I’m going to reuse some classes from my other game, MegaFillers Flash, which is not released yet. These classes help me to create panels, menus, buttons and other controls quickly and easily. You can download them here. (Some of them have depedencies which I can’t publish for they are too specific for my upcoming game, such as the GameContent class.)

Not sure if I’ll be able to make it within 2 days, considering I’m slow like hell, and I should finish my other game too – glad it’s only a Mini Ludum Dare which allows me to be late. 😉

Few days ago I saw the Mini Ludum Dare #37 announcement, and started to think about whether to enter this and what not-game would I make. I had two topics on mind:

My miserable life. Kind of an egoist topic, but nowadays I’m dealing with quite unpleasant issues. For example, recently my work schedule has been changed so that now I have significantly less time for software development and recreation, and to be honest, I don’t take it so easy…

Asperger’s Syndrome / Autism in general. Maybe this topic would be more valuable than the egoist topic above, but the problem that I had no idea what not-game could I make out of it. I was thinking of joining forums to ask for ideas, but before I could get around to it, I’ve got more and more ideas for the other topic…

In the end, I decided to do the first topic, mainly because I feel like doing it, and currently I don’t really have motivation to do the other. So I’ll live out my egoism.

Actually, I’m not even 100% sure if I’ll do this. Maybe I’ll get up tomorrow and I won’t feel like to get into it, and so I won’t do anything in the end. Anyway, I have an other project which I should get on track with, since now I can only work on game development at weekends, and I’m being several weeks late with that.

By the way, this would be my first Ludum Dare entry of any kind, ever. Let’s see!